Random

News from our friends

Elizabeth II HAS REIGNED in a world moving swiftly through political shifts, cultural change and technological advances. Traditional institutions of law, religion and politics have suffered loss of ...

Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary was born at 17 Bruton Street, London on 21 April 1926. A happy childhood was spent with her parents, the Duke and Duchess of York, and younger sister Margaret Rose. ...

Edward VIII (1936) Edward, Prince of Wales, eldest son of George V and Queen Mary, was known to the family as 'David'. Charming and informal, he was a popular prince, touring Britain and the empire, ...

When Queen Victoria died in 1901, she left three generations of heirs. They, it was expected, would reign as monarchs of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. In fact, the name survived only 16 years. In ...

Discussed

Advertisement

→ "A couple of years ago a chap came in with this portrait and I said 'Oh goodness, what a wonderful Gainsborough'. He had no idea; he put it straight into auction and got a lot of money for it."

→ "Just the other day we spotted a bonfire waiting to be lit and there was a Georgian window seat on it. The owners didn't want it so we grabbed it and sold it for £1,200."

→ "In 1990 one lucky person bought a sketch on an arcade stall, the page turned out to be by Leonardo da Vinci and worth £100,000."

→ "My partner picked a miniature winding staircase out of a skip last year. It was a shop display, painted white and it must have come out of a florist in the 1960s. So I left it out in the garden and it got all rusty. We had 50 people asking after it. We were so pleased when we sold it for £285 - only to discover later that we could have sold it for thousands."

→ "I found a beautiful silver bracelet on a market stall. I bought it for £15.50 but when I took it to be valued it was worth over £160! I didn't sell it though, I gave it to my wife for her birthday - don't tell her!

→ "I once bought a model of a skull from 1850. Every part of the brain was inside: the eyes, the jaw, nerves and everything. I've had a full skeleton of a little baby. That sold to Japan. When we got it it was in bits so we had to pin all the bones together."